My Brother's 1977 Toyota Celica ST

Here it is the day we brought it home. The top pic shows it next to my Parisienne. As you can see from the bottom pic, it needs some front-end body work. It needs a lot of other stuff, too. After beginning to work on it, we found that virtually every part on this car needed some sort of repair or replacement. But we wouldn't buy old cars if we didn't expect that.

Here are a bunch of parts that we've removed from the car. They are shown in our basement, in various stages of restoration. Both front fenders were straight, but both also had some rust damage. The driver's side fender cooperated nicely with my sanding, Bondo, and primer. The passenger's did not. I had to undo my repairs several times before I got a result that could be considered satisfactory. We removed basically every removable front-end body part (bumper, splash guards, grille, lights, etc). It was then that we discovered the extent of the damage to the unibody frame. No wonder nothing had lined up correctly. A $250 trip to the body shop pulled things back into shape nicely. After getting it back from that repair, we cleaned up the engine compartment and sprayed primer on some rust and exposed metal. The engine was washed with Engine-Bright, the air filter was replaced, and the rusted air cleaner cover was repainted flat black. We were then able to reinstall the reconditioned fenders, parking lights, splash guards and coolant bottle. I was pleased to see that the bolts now lined up with their holes. We also reinstalled the headlamp assemblies. We used one original and one salvaged from a junkyard, as the original was damaged. These also fit nicely after the body repairs. My brother found two nearly-new hood hinges online, so we installed those too.

Would you like some car with those wires? All this junk was apparently the remains of a defunct alarm system. We had to take apart much of the interior of the car to rip out all this stuff. It was wired clear back to the trunk! Now there is a lot less dead wire cluttering up the engine compartment. Next step is to do a complete cooling system replacement: new radiator, hoses, coolant and thermostat. After that, we'll change the transmission fluid and filter, and try to find the source of a persistent engine oil leak. The rest of the front body will then be put back together. The original bumper face and shocks will be reused; we found a replacement reinforcement bar, rubber guards, and license plate bracket at the junkyard. A better hood will also be installed to replace the badly crumpled one. After more rust repair on the doors and rear quarters, the car will be repainted in the original red-brown color. Watch this page, more updates and photos to come.

Here is the engine compartment. The radiator, cap, hoses, clamps, thermostat and coolant have all been replaced. The air filter, oil filter, and oil have been changed, and the air cleaner has been repainted. The coolant and washer reservoir has been flushed out and bolted in correctly (it fits, now that the frame has been straightened). The exhaust manifold shield, oil drain plug, fuel lines and hood hinges have also been replaced. The hood was salvaged from a junked Celica for $25. We repaired some minor rust and primed the whole thing. It looks much better than the bent hood that was on here before. The new cooling system seems to be performing well, and the drain plug replacement took care of most of the oil leakage.

Here is the front now, with the replacement hood installed and other parts restored, replaced and correctly aligned. It's not perfect, but it looks a whole lot better than it did. As you can see, the hood, fenders and valance panels are in primer right now. There is more rust repair to be done on the doors and rear quarters before we get the car painted. There is also a bit more mechanical work still to do, including a complete brake job (I'll have my mechanic do that; I don't trust my brake repair abilities.) But it's looking better every day.

UPDATES -- Page Two